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How green is my garage?

Bill Gates is famous not only for revolutionising communications but also for being the proud owner of the largest green roof garage in Seattle.

Maserati recently ran a garage design competition…and entries included not only green garages…but an insanely cool garage that is everything about setting and concept (if just a little light on resolution).

The winning entry shown on this youtube clip is car as ‘art’ and perhaps might be a useful way of thinking ‘green garage’ for Lace Hill.

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9 thoughts on “How green is my garage?”

Comments: (1) good for Bill – I wish he would spend more of his Billions (pun intended!) on environmental research (which is underfunded) and less on medical research (which is over-funded) (2)high-spec garages seem a great idea but I have noticed that in expensive parts of London there is a tendency for them to be use or ordinary domestic purposes – modern cars rust so little and have so much better security that they can and do live on the street (3) the man with the Maserati looks like a dangerous freak! – but he has a point.

There is a modest diurnal variation in the number of parked cars in our street but in the main it seems pretty constant, day in day out and year in year out. So the obvious solution is to have more car-sharing schemes. I think that as a community we could make do with half as many cars and, as an example, I think I only use my car on about 60 days/year.

There is a modest diurnal variation in the number of parked cars in our street but in the main it seems pretty constant, day in day out and year in year out. So the obvious solution is to have more car-sharing schemes. I think that as a community we could make do with half as many cars and, as an example, I think I only use my car on about 60 days/year. Some design and planning problems have social solutions instead of physical solutions.

London is in the process of following Paris in the introduction of a bike-sharing scheme and it is rumoured that the Mayor (who is a keen cyclist) sees it as a way of charging London into the cycling century. He thinks that more use of cyclists will lead to more demand for cycle lanes etc. I hope he is right and it would be wonderful if the success of a cycle-sharing scheme led to car-sharing schemes becoming more popular. Sorry, but I do not like taxis or taxi-drivers (and of course they loathe and detest cyclists).
PS the above photograph reminds me of the great need for developing a green roof typology: it looks like a mountain top in Scotland (=OK, if this was the aim).

http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2010/07/23/how-green-is-my-garage/
I have long had an idea about managing parking on the street. I no longer live in London, however, this same very real problem exists in most built up areas even where I live and work – on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland in Australia. There never seems to be planning to cope with the number of cars per capita and especially in relation to the working community and the patient community – I work in health care.
My idea though involves multilevel car parking in the street. The concept involves the use of the car carrying trucks (lorries)that can take eight cars on two levels where previously only four cars could park, the cars are off the street and safer overnight.
It is a concept that I think could be worked with to develop a way forward with current parking problems. The trucks could roll in at say 1730 hrs and roll out again at 0700hrs leaving the streets uncongested.
This would give provision to recycle services already available. Lessening the need for restructuring, and minimising the need to alter current infrastructure – in the long run using less resources and less capital investment. It may go a long way to provide inspiration to a buddin entrepeneur and provide alternate career pathways for the drivers/ owners of these trucks.
Its outside the square where most innovation lives.